Keep your greenhouse and garden free from toxins for the healthiest crops, says Jean Vernon You don’t need to use pesticides in your garden or greenhouse. Some gardeners reach for the spray with little thought about what they are doing, intent on destroying whatever bug or creature is eating their plants. But pesticides cost the […]
As soon as The Chelsea Flower Show closes its doors to the public on Saturday 28 May, the work of disassembling the beautiful gardens, trade stands and horticultural displays begins. The Main Avenue Hartley Botanic Show Garden takes more than three weeks to construct and lovingly plant but only a few days to disassemble. Hartley […]
Lily of the valley is easy to force in the greenhouse or the house, or at least this is what I have been told. Despite the fact that I really love the scent of lily of the valley and own a greenhouse, I have somehow never quite got around to forcing my own for pots […]
I have to confess that it’s great to see the back of January, with its long dark days, now it’s February there is that wonderful feeling that spring is on its way. Peppers, chillies and aubergines need a long growing season – it takes up to five months from sowing until the fruits mature. Most […]
This depends on so many different factors. We might consider concentration, range or sheer quantity of vitamins produced. Or minerals, antioxidants, antho-cyanins each contains and so on. Any contender will be lesser value if the crop comes all at once and has difficult storage or processing, ideally it’s continuous year round. And of course it […]
In the early decades of the 21st century, flooding was still an extreme event. Now it’s the ‘new normal’ – and we’re watching our plots go under.
It may be drear outside at the moment, but the great thing about gardening is that you’re always looking forward. So it’s already summer in my head for I have just received some new dahlia tubers in the post. They may look like shrivelled brown things now, packed in plastic bags full of flyaway vermiculite, […]
If you want to help the bees, bee savvy says Jean Vernon January brings a glut of seed and plant catalogues through the door, all vying for attention with their attractive bright and tempting pick and mix of plants. For the greenhouse gardener it’s a welcome distraction from the current wet, murky winter and a […]
Introducing Opus Hartley Botanic has been exhibiting beautifully planted trade stands at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for close to sixty years, but for 2016, MD Johnny Mobasher is taking it to another level with a Main Avenue show garden designed by Catherine MacDonald from Landform Consultants Ltd. The inspiration for the feature glasshouse which […]
If you have a grapevine in your greenhouse this is the perfect moment to give it its annual prune, and I have been attacking my absolute beast of a vine. Grape vines make wonderful greenhouse plants in one way: the warmth and shelter makes for an environment much closer to the climates they like to […]
Recent weather has turned the seasons so far around; I just wonder what the new year will bring. Here in Hertfordshire banks of daffodils were flowering just before the New Year, Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ burst suddenly into full bloom and in the garden I lifted tender Canna’s for storage in the greenhouse between Christmas […]
One of the most famous botanic gardens in the world, and one of the largest tourist attractions in the UK, Kew Gardens is home to the planet’s largest collection of living plants. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was formally established in 1759, and is now one of the few gardens placed on the UNESCO list […]
